Category: Travel tips

That was the plan. No, we haven’t reached Wellington. We are half an hour north of it – just ran out of steam. The day was cloudy, but not rainy. It was comfortable for traveling. In the morning we walked just a little on the walkway in Plymouth which has got awards from UN as the most ecological, etc.

It was nice, all the walks for me here are nice – on walkways or just on wild beaches…New Plymouth looks light, modern, has charm. Ir has nice parks, but we missed them. On the whole – people here in the south of North Island are more into flowers and more cheerful themselves, or that is what I feel. But my impressions about people are very scarce, for I have no time to talk to them so what do I know…

Then we tried to take pics of Mt. Taranaki or Mt. Egmont, because there is no clear agreement between both sides (Maori and government) which name to use.The first is Maori name, the second is given by Captain Cook. Vote which one do you like! Me- I don’t care. I like its looks. Reminds Mt. Fuji which I have seen in pictures only.

We tried to see a beach there – they are not by main road – but it wasn’t somehow impressive. Lots of places for surfers. Therefore this whole peninsula is called Surfers’ peninsula. But there are steep rock , too. waves are plunging into those rocks and splashing up! beautiful. of course. Even without sun. We came upon a beach in Patea and there was a mall -waves were splashing over it and on both sides of the black sand beach there were steep cliffs, as if in Ireland or England (White Cliffs in Dover – or so I read). The surf barrier looked as in the movie French Lieutenant’s Woman. Pleasant.

Then we drove for 11 km from the main road to see the Kai Iwi or Mowhanau beach – on the way there was a surprise – Bason Botanic Reserve, a very beautifully taken care of park. With a begonia exhibit. they we exploding! The beach didn’t seem attractive at first – but then we noticed a walk by the cliffs and two big rocks standing separately in the sea, like in a movie “the Piano”.

And also – there was a Flying Fox thing in the kids playing ground…So I remembered my childhood and oh my God what fun it was!

We didn’t see Wanganui, just passed by, but upon entering it noticed an Aviary – a closed big place for birds and birds there were. All colors one can imagine, mostly parrots, but also pigeons, a colorful goose with tiny cute ducklings, Love birds and parakeets, their colors were strange – like artificial, as if they don’t belong to nature – my friend used to call those colors FC cold blueish greens. Combined with yellows. The parrots were ringnecks and African Greys and others I don’t know. Green, yellow, colorful. Fighting, playing, hatching. And we could stand in the middle of it.

Also – we managed to stop at a berry farm – the second one we noticed after making totally 1500 km… in this climate. Maybe they have no market for berries, because otherwise – why not to grow them? Oh yes, they have no Mexicans and Eastern Europeans to work in farms…The climate is perfect and in my long life – I have never eaten such tasty strawberries! So aromatic! so sweet! it is a pity we had no time to pick ourselves, it would have been a double pleasure.

And that was it, the road was so crowded, so busy, we had to find a place to stay, which we did on a dirty beach – here I will copy the name from the book: Paraparaumu. Who in the world can remember such names…

From Orewa to new Plymouth – it seemed to be 260 km, but we made 400km. Maybe we drove a longer and more spectacular road.

The morning was again bright as usually mornings here are, at least for us they were. We started early, but all those e-mails and connections took some good hour from our morning. We drove a lot – more than 400 km, the most of our drivings here yet. Drove straight south. Through Hamilton, where we stopped to walk in Hamilton gardens – very beautifully built gardens, in a way I never expected. there were several exotic gardens enclosed with walls or hedges. (Thanks Margot and Wayne for planting such interesting gardens :-).

I have seen many Japanese gardens and Chinese, too. But never an Indian garden with a piece of their architecture:

A Renaisance garden, and English garden -they all had architectural designs and details:

And a Maori garden:

During our luch a bunch of maori kids were brought from gardens and as a reward for listening boring stories about plants – were permitted to play in their playground. That was like all the fire sirens screaming together! I think I have never heard such a noise, a noise of happiness. Running barefoot, using all those fast merry-go-rounds, falling, pushing each other, and yet later gathered by teachers into a tidy waiting line, and shouting, screaming, yelling…

When we reached Otorohanga – I read that there is a Kiwi House Bird Park. So we went – we felt an obligation to see a live kiwi while here in New Zealand. And we saw – in a dark house resembling a moonlight. There were two kiwis – one was Evan the other had two names, one which as if was Ricky. They were seriously digging the soil with their long beaks. the rest of the garden was not so impressive, very few birds in my opinion, some eels in a dirty pond…(that is how they live, I guess, in nature). The tickets were $16NZ each.

Kaka Parrot resting:

After that we already rushed towards New Plymouth, the road was winding through mountains and a green canyon, reaching the Tasman sea where we couldn’t help but stop and plunge into teh warm waves! the beach was very different than we saw before, (it was in Mokau) in the sense that the sand was black and glittering in the sun. It also had that blue shade sometimes black hens have. But it was soft to walk on that sand and the sea was very far away.

Low tide…the sand was wet, most likely that was a very flat beach, Strange to leave your clothes on such a wet sand – they get wet. But getting into the waves was lovely! and taht is it, we gathered some shells and good views for pic and headed towards Plymouth, which is a nice city. Lots of churches, old and modern. Also – those areas here have more flowers than Northland or around Auckland. I noticed that people don’t like planting fruit trees or gardens by their houses even if they have enough land. Not a big fashion to have flower gardens in front of houses unless they grow by themselves, which they do – they are blooming here! I could notice even flowers by the road, on slopes, some even in gardens. Such a climate, give me one, I would show what a garden should look like!

Also – here is the prince of the house we stayed at, he is going to celebrate Americana weekend!:

We had a beautiful morning in Paihia and left towards the West coast. To tell the truth I am falling in love with Backpackers Lodges…Unlike faceless motels – they have characters. They have either a nice garden or some courtyard for eating in the morning, or dinners or lunches, whatever anyone wants.

Also – they are filled with young people who talk about their adventures, or studies, or plans in life and also old people who are very quiet which is also very good for neighbors as us :-). And the owners are usually very patient people. They don’t tell you much about where to go or what to do, but they emanate that welcome spirit and concern about your comfort.

So yesterday we crossed the peninsula and noticed a sign on the way: Ngawha Springs – of course, we drove there and there we met the first Maori women – mother and daughter selling the tickets. They were full of fun, laughing, so we had a good chat. I said – of all the New Zealanders I met here yet -you are the most cheerful! The Springs were very simple, wooden boxes built into the soil and hot water bubbles in them. There are different boxes and different temperatures. To make it interesting – they have names. The hottest one is called Doctors and the other – Favorite…They have a sense of humor. Because it is so simple, it costs only $4 NZ. and very few soakers. As far as I notice already -there are a lot of Canadians and Brits who are retired and travel here looking for deals and enjoying the warm climate. So I talked with a Canadian couple, who stay in their motor home and soak every day for a week already. There was a sad Kiwi, too. And basically no more at that time. The waters are a little gray, some dark green, but seemed clean, a very slight sulfur smell. That was a really good time!

Then we drove to Opononi and Omapere -and I was pleasantly surprised to see the big sandy dunes in front on the other side of the bay -it looked like Nida – my place in Lithuania! So alike, that I couldn’t take my eyes off!

Then the road went South, which is down, through Kauri forest. Very thick jungle with Kauri giants sticking here and there. the biggest had a path to it and viewing places. It is maybe even more than 2000 years old…and has fragile roots, who would expect that?

They have used most of te Kauri trees for building houses and making furniture – good wood! Also they are mentioning about Kauri gum – as if it looks like amber, but far from it…Very blank, lacks color and expression. And extremely expensive to my eyes. I should have brought amber to them…

When we reached Orewa, 30 km north of Auckland, we felt like staying there – by the sea, by a very wide and long beach, so magic…warm waters, so we swam. And tides here are low in the evenings – so it takes long to get to the waters.

At night we went to the sea shore to look at stars -and saw the Southern Cross for the first time in our lives! And the constelation of Centaurus, and the brightest star Syrius high up in the sky. No Casiopeia, no Polar Star. Only the Orion looked in its place – my husband said that it was turned over – I didn’t notice for it is very symetrical in the first place. It is still strange, that North is in another direction that you would expect by default.

It was a very good motel we found to stay at in Whangarei. Needs to be mentioned: Fountain Lodge Motel. I didn’t see a fountain there, but we got a suite of two rooms, lot of beds, a kitchen and dining area. And best of all – it had a speedy internet! While traveling it is hard to find enough time to use it, but we did, even talked through Skype with my parents. This is the view we had:

Seeing such a kitchen I couldn’t resist to cook a good breakfast. A peculiar thing for us from the US – it is not so common to see a supermarket here, and they open pretty late and close very early. So we have to adjust to that. The other thing I want not to forget to mention – the books wark that NZ has a lot of moskitoes and sand flies. But until now we haven’t seen a screen on a window – the windows are open at all times, letting this wonderful air in and out without any flying subjects. Maybe we will see them in the future.

From Whangarei we stopped at Whangarei Falls:

There is a nice trail down to the bottom of them and then by the river to a Kauri tree grove.

The path is all surrounded by this jungle growth – dominated by big ferns. As is a dinosaur forest as we have seen them in museums:

Because of the clean air the NZ sun bites, even under the hair line…Some trampers look like lobsters their lips swollen and cheeks red. So Andrei uses his umbrella and looks like “A lady in waiting” from a French court…:

Half an hour of a nice walk through some pastures and a forest- and we find ourselves on a bridge called canopy walk. Lots of trees above us, but lots of them under:’

At last – here they are – one Kauri tree and then another, and that is all. They are too good to be in abundance:

As if those trees are the oldest here, or maybe on planet?.. In any case, they have been here before people came and took care of them ,meaning they used them for their good timber. Also, it is believed that some tsunami downed a lot of them at some point in history and now they find the old preserved trees in swamps and do crafts form them. The sap fossilized into something similar to amber. That bridge was so convenient to walk on that I have to show how it looks like:

The Whangarei river:

After that we wanted to buy some fruit in the orchards – they were writing on entrances – Fruit market – but we entered, and there was nothing there, no market, just orchard. While passing I took a picture of kiwis – Mark advised me “to pick a kiwi from a branch” – instead I touched several kiwis, but didn’t pick, didn’t dare…

After tramping in the jungle we needed some beach, which was not hard to find. We did a loop towards Tutukaka, stopped and Ngunguru for lunch and seagull feeding, then at Whangaumu Bay for beach combing:

Andrei even snorkeled there – the waters were calm, the process was easy, but nothing under waters just sand… But he enjoyed.

Lots of islands…Also here and there like weeds by the road you cannot ignore those beautiful flowers:

A little town Kawakawa was our next stop. An interesting story, One couple (Ann & Alan) from Rockville has been there last May and showed their pics to their friends upon return. In one of the pics was an impressive toilet, impressive in its design. But that couple didn’t stop or enter the toilet, just took the pic from ther car window and that is it. The other couple (us) saw their pics and especially me got very intrigued by those toilets – for god’s sake they are created by Hundertwasser and i was lucky to see his toilets in Viena where he was from. To make things a little clearer – he was not only a toilet builder, but a prominent architect. i have seen his exotic houses only in pictures. So a chance to see his work, in this case- “the toilets”, was very enticing. Amazing as it is this othert couple form Rockville managed to see them in detail in less than a year! To me – it is a miracle:

One more view of a Bay:

and we reached Paihia, where we had a two night reservation in a Peppertree lodge, which is a very exclusive hostel – very clean, private and non-private rooms, big kitchen with lots of young and older people cooking non stop -it was a pleasant experience to watch how good they are in cutting veggies, cooking, presenting on plates. And how neat they were, cleaning after themselves. Then long evenings sitting and talking -people from all around the world…No, this time I didn’t participate in talks, I rested after all those impressions and wrote this Blog.

Our day of rest in Paihia was good! We walked on the rocky-sandy beach and then used the hostel’s kayaks:

And swam to an island:

Where again -I picked the shells…

Unluckily – a wonderful calm and sunny day turned into a windy and cloudy, so we didn’t do a long trip as i planned…our botoms got cold in the water and it is not very comfy to sit in that cayak.Wheather here changes a lot during the day. When the sun comes out – it is rather warm, when it hides – you don’t want to be standing with wet clothes on…

Tomorrow a long drive downwards is waiting for us.

Today we rented our reserved car in Juicy rentals (BTW -very good prices!) and left Auckland. It was a little challenging for my husband to drive – first, on the left side…and second -the car has a manual transmission. To change gear with left hand versus the right is a little inconvenient at first, especially after using only an automatic car at home. But otherwise – the little Japanese red girl is very good, tiny, but spacious inside, very comfortable to sit in.

So we drove through some resort towns North of Auckland and reached the Goat Island marine reserve:

It means that they don’t let to fish there and so the fish are big and tame. I saw blue ones- very bright blue. We snorkeled there by those rocks you can see in the pic. I wanted to swim to the Island, but the wind started blowing and somehow it felt cold and unpleasant. maybe we are not good snorkelers, I guess we really are not :-)…because the main problem we face is the lack of air. I start grasping for air after a little while – the little tube through which you breathe is to narrow for us. So you were right, Adrian, we shouldn’t have brought our snorkeling equipment with us.

A bigger attraction for us was while we ate the tasty kumara chips we got in the famous Fish and Chip place in Leigh on our way to Goat Island. A seagull and several duck appeared to ask for there share. it was not written not to feed them , so I gave them a little. I haven’t seen such a territorial seagull and such brave and needy ducks – they snapped on my toes and jacket, sneaked their heads into our bags looking for food.

Then we drove back to Rt 1, to Warkworth. On the way stopped at a group of big barns – there were restaurants and arto and crafts galleries. The arts there were very good! It was pleasant to mix some arts into your day of nature. Those were the views on our road:

Then we saw a sign to Ruakaka – it is not advertised anywhere, but we saw that there is a beach and wanted to explore it, for curiosity reasons. And that was the best impression! We parked the car under white sandy dunes which looked like in Palanga – my Lithuanian resort city by the Baltic Sea. And we walked to the ses – it was marveluos, very close to my heart! No wind, warm, peacefull and very spaciuos, very soft white sand, beautiful shells, that are my preciuos findings. We Lithuanians are big pickers – we like to pick berries, mushrooms, and shells or amber on sea shores. So that made me really happy!

Except that in Lithuania there are no islands in the horizon of the sea. And the weather is seldom so warm.

On this last pic one can see chimneys -there is a power station on the shore there and it is being dismanteled. For that reason they got workers to here and they rented both motels for them long time rents…So we couldn’t stay, couldn’t listen to the wonderful soothing sounds of the waves more. And therefore we drove to Whangarei and got a motel with Hi-Fi! next time about it.

It was hard to decide what to do today…The forecast said there will be showers. After yesterday’s really big ones we were afraid not to find ourselves in a cloud again. So we took a green Link bus which goes in circle around the city and saw some of Auckland through the windows. It took us 40 min to do the circle. While sitting in the bus we were making decisions – the skies started to look clearer, so lets rent a car for a day and drive to the Kerikeri beach where they filmed the movie The Piano. But the rental offices refused to rent us a car for a day. So the only last thing we had in mind was to take a ferry to Waiheke Island which we did. It sails through Devonport, even stops there, then by Rangitoto island, some other islands and here we are – in Waiheke, which was described by some Kiwis as a really good thing to see. The length of the island is only 25 km and the width is 5 km, but it is made of green rolling hills with some trees and bushes. Some dinosaur type ferns in deeper wet crevices. As I expected – once everyone from the ferry was taken into buses or cars – the narrow road got clear and quiet and we walked some 20 min to the first town Onerua to eat. The servers screwed up our lunch, we paid for one thing, got another, etc. In any case that was not the main point. The rain started again…So we waited while eating, then walked towards the sea on the right side (I am reminding – the island has seas on both sides :-).

The waters were very green, no dark blue hues at all. The other shower caught us on the way – and luckily there was a bus stop. Here they build bus stops with roofs and sides – so we sat there for half an hour, a Swiss girl on a bicycle came all wet and we talked with her. She came to Auckland for 6 weeks to learn some English and she said she is very old…already 31 years old…After the rain stopped we reached the shallow beach and walked around a steep edge of the island and towards the other side – towards the praised Palms beach. There were fancy houses by the sea – very modern to my eyes.

One had an extremely big chair in the yard – a chez long – as a sculpture, I guess. Or maybe they sit in it if they have a group of guests. The walk was nice, there are benches along the road to sit and rest, and we had to climb quite a bit to reach the very top of the mountain. The road was winding till we got down again to the Palm beach. It was beautiful. The sand was not white, but there were waves and the green waters were warm enough to play in them. On the whole the air and water temperatures here are so comfortable here for a feel! I can’t stop appreciating it.

This is how locals love dogs:

I guess we walked around 8-9 km from ferry to Palm beach – it was like a hike and a pleasant one – I could observe plants and flowers by the houses. The had some unripe peaches, though not the planted ones in a tidy orchard but the wild ones growing in a jungle environment. Nobody there seemed to be interested in gardening.

While waiting for a bus to get back to the ferry – i saw a tiny gallery and had a pleasure of seeing some local talents’ paintings.

This is how Auckland looked while approaching it from the sea: